Shillong, Jan 22: Voice of the People Party (VPP) president Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit is against unification of political parties just to win the polls.
When asked, Basaiawmoit said, “I have been telling this many times, unification for what purpose. If unification is only an attempt to win elections there is no point at all.”
According to Ardent, there must be a solid ground, a solid principle, a solid foundation to reach the stage of unification where ‘we need to have one mind, one goal, one principle’.
“Until and unless we agree on principles and issues it is pointless to try to unify regional parties before election only,” he said .
Besides VPP, the state has four regional parties- United Democratic Party (UDP), Hill State People’s Democratic Party (HSPDP), Khun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement (KHNAM), and People’s Democratic Front (PDF).
To a question on the attempt of the national parties to swallow regional parties in the state, Ardent said the threat for the regional parties from the national parties either from Congress or from the BJP is natural.
“Even Congress is also trying to swallow , so BJP will definitely do so as they are in Delhi so they just want to piggy ride as long as they understand they have not received the support of the people. The moment they start getting the support of the people they will leave these regional parties,” he said.
On the regional parties supporting a BJP backed government in the state, the VPP president said that the main reason for floating a new regional party was because of the complete failure on the part of the regional parties.
He alleged that regional parties in Meghalaya are spineless.
“It is very sad to tell you that regional parties in the state have no backbone to stand on their own. You know they like to be part of or to join with any party just to be in power because for them the only objective is to win elections and be in the government or be in power. So they are ready to even sacrifice, they are even ready to leave out the principles of the party.”
